B.H. Fairchild
Bertram Harry Fairchild Jr. (born October 17, 1942) is an award-winning American poet.B.H. Fairchild, Academy of American Poets. Poets.org, Web, Mar. 24, 2018. Life Fairchild was born in Houston, Texas, the son of a lathe operator. He grew up in small towns in the oil fields of Oklahoma, Texas, and Kansas. He worked through high school and college for his father.[http://www.poems.com/essafair.htm Mariani, Paul A Conversation with B.H. Fairchild, from Image magazine, Fall 2005, reprinted by Poetry Daily], accessed October 29, 2006 He earned a B.A. and an M.A. at the University of Kansas and a Ph.D. at the University of Tulsa in Oklahoma. He has taught English and Creative Writing at California State University, San Bernardino, Claremont Graduate University > Faculty > Emeritus Claremont Graduate University, Seattle Pacific University, Texas Christian University, Warren Wilson College. and the Ph.D. program at the University of North Texas. Fairchild has written that a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts was vital to his career as a poet: "It's very simple: without an NEA Fellowship in 1989-90, I would not have been able to complete my second book, Local Knowledge, nor have had the necessary time to compose the core poems for The Art of the Lathe, my third book, which, I am proud to say, received the Kingsley Tufts Award and was a finalist for the National Book Award, thus bringing my work to a wider audience than the immediate members of my family and also, therefore, making future work possible."[http://www.nea.gov/features/writers/Fairchild.html National Endowment for the Arts Web > Features: Writer's Corner: B.H. Fairchild], accessed October 29, 2006 His poems have appeared in literary journals and magazines including The New Yorker, Paris Review, Southern Review, Poetry, TriQuarterly, Hudson Review, Salmagundi, and Sewanee Review. His 3rd poetry collection, The Art of the Lathe (Alice James Books, 1998), brought Fairchild's work to national prominence, and ultimately gave him international prominence, as The Way Weiser Press in England published the U.K. edition of the book. He lives in Claremont, California with his wife, Patti, and dog, Minnie. Writing The Los Angeles Times wrote that "The Art of the Lathe by B.H. Fairchild has become a contemporary classic—a passionate example of the plain style, so finely crafted and perfectly pitched...workhorse narratives suffused with tenderness and elegiac music."Alice James Books > B.H. Fairchild Author Page Recognition The Art of the Lathe, brought Fairchild's work to national prominence, garnering him a large number of awards and fellowships including the 1997 Beatrice Hawley Award, the William Carlos Williams Award, Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, California Book Award, Natalie Ornish Poetry Award, PEN Center USA West Poetry Award, National Book Award (finalist), Capricorn Poetry Award,[http://www.waywiser-press.com/fairchild.html Waywiser Press > Author Page: B.H. Fairchild, The Art of the Lathe], accessed October 29, 2006 and Rockefeller and Guggenheim fellowships. Awards *2011 Pushcart Prize in the Essay for "Logophilia" *2010 Best of the Net Award for "The Student Assistant" *2009 Pushcart Prize in Poetry for "Frieda Pushnik" *2007 University of Kansas Distinguished Achievement Award *2005 Lannan Foundation Residency in Marfa, Texas *2005 Gold Medal in Poetry, California Book Awards * 2005 Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry * 2005 National Endowment for the Arts - Literature Fellowship in PoetryNEA Literature Fellowships > Forty Years of Supporting American Writers * 2004 Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry * 2002 Arthur Rense Poetry Prize, from the American Academy of Arts and Letters * 2002 National Book Critics Circle Award,National Book Critics Circle > All Past Winners and finalists for Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest * 2001 The Frost Place poet in residence * 2000 Rockefeller FellowshipRockefeller Foundation 2000 Annual Report > Residencies (Fellowship Recipients) * 1999 Guggenheim FellowshipJohn Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation > Current Fellows > Search Fellows > B.H. Fairchild * 1999 William Carlos Williams Award * 1999 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award * 1999 California Book Award * 1999 Natalie Ornish Poetry Award * 1999 PEN Center USA West Poetry Award * 1998 Finalist, National Book Award * 1997 Beatrice Hawley Award * 1996 Capricorn Poetry Award * 1988 National Endowment for the Arts - Literature Fellowship in PoetryNEA Literature Fellowships > Forty Years of Supporting American Writers * Walter E. Dakin Fellowship to the Sewanee Writers Conference * National Writers’ Union First Prize * AWP Anniversary Award Publications Poetry * C & W Machine Works (chapbook). Denton, TX: Trilobite Press, 1983. * Flight (chapbook). Blythewood, SC: Devil's Millhopper Press, 1985. * The Arrival of the Future (illustrated by Ross Zirkle). Nordcross, GA: Swallow's Tale Press, 1985; Livingston Publishing, 1985; 2nd edition, Farmington, ME: Alice James Books. * The System of Which the Body Is One Part (chapbook). Brockport, NY: State Street Press, 1988. * Local Knowledge. Princeton, NJ: Quarterly Review of Literature, 1991; reprinted New York: Norton, 2005. * The Art of the Lathe. Farmington, ME: Alice James Books, 1998. * Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest. New York: Norton, 2003. * Usher. New York: Norton, 2009. Non-fiction * Such Holy Song: Music as Idea, Form, and Image in the Poetry of William Blake. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1980. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the Poetry Foundation.B.H. Fairchild b. 1942, Poetry Foundation, Web, Sep. 12, 2012. See also *List of U.S. poets References External links ;Poems *Beauty" *Author Page & 2 poems ("Two Photographs" & "Old Men Playing Basketball") at Waywiser Press *B.H. Fairchild b. 1942 at the Poetry Foundation *B.H. Fairchild at PoemHunter (10 poems) ;Books *B.H. Fairchild at Amazon.com ;Audio / video * [http://poemsoutloud.net/audio/archive/bh_fairchild_reads_the_gray_man/ Audio Reading: Fairchild reads "The Gray man" from Usher for Poems Out Loud] * [http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/author.php?auth_id=1643 Audio Reading: The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor > Poems by B.H. Fairchild] * [http://poemsoutloud.net/columns/archive/fairchild_on_usher_beauty_and_craft/ Interview: Poems Out Loud > April 7, 2009 > B. H. Fairchild on Usher, Beauty, and Craft] *[http://www.poetry.la/page51.html Poetry.LA video of B.H. Fairchild reading from Usher at Valley Contemporary Poets, Tarzana CA, 01/2010] *B.H. Fairchild at YouTube ;About * Author Page: B.H. Fairchild at W.W. Norton * [http://www.cprw.com/Bakken/fairchild.htm Review: Contemporary Poetry Review > The Plains Pastoral of B.H. Fairchild (a retrospective review of Fairchild's work), by Christopher Bakken] * Author Page: B.H. Fairchild > Alice James Books * [http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jul/19/entertainment/ca-b-h-fairchild19 Review: The Los Angeles Times > July 19, 2009 > A Review by David L. Ulin of Usher: Poems by B.H. Fairchild] American poets Category:English-language poets Category:Writers from California Category:Writers from Texas Category:American academics Category:Texas Christian University faculty Category:Guggenheim Fellows Category:National Endowment for the Arts Fellows Category:1942 births Category:The New Yorker people Category:Living people Category:20th-century poets Category:Poets Category:People from Houston, Texas